Man may have solicited suicides for up to 5 years

'Vulnerable' women sought in online chat rooms

RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press

Published 6:30 am, Monday, February 14, 2005

PORTLAND, ORE. - A man who used an Internet chat room to try to set up a mass suicide on Valentine's Day had been trying to persuade women for at least five years to engage in sex acts with him and then kill themselves, a sheriff said Sunday.

Gerald Krein is charged with solicitation to commit murder, and prosecutors are expected to add an attempted manslaughter charge today, said Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger.

Combing through old chat room records, investigators discovered that Krein had been trying to entice women across North America to commit suicide as far back as 2000, Evinger said. Krein told investigators he had been in touch with 31 women, authorities said.

Krein, 26, was arrested Wednesday at his mother's home in Klamath Falls. He moved to Oregon about a year ago from the Sacramento, Calif., area.

"The common theme is that these were women who were vulnerable, who were depressed. He invited them to engage in certain sexual acts with him — and then they were to hang themselves naked from a beam in his house," the sheriff said. "He was indicating in these chat groups to these women that he had a beam and that it would hold multiple people."

"Because he lived in a mobile home, it's clear that he was either engaging in some kind of fantasy or that he planned for it to happen somewhere else," Klamath County Prosecutor Ed Caleb said Sunday.

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No deaths had been found that were linked to Krein, the sheriff said, but he said he would not be surprised if someone had killed herself as a result of Krein's alleged activities.

"My concern is if he's been doing this for some time, it's my hope that he hasn't been successful — but it could turn out that he has been," he said.